


Left Arm of the Goddess

by easternCriminal



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: (Later chapters), Gen, Impa centric, Not Age of Calamity compliant, Sheikah headcanons, impa and zelda relationship, post calamity, pre calamity, zelda/impa if ya squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/easternCriminal
Summary: Impa through the years from when she was a child and chosen to defend the princess, to coping with the results of the calamity, to after the hero wakes up and world is saved.
Relationships: Impa & Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Left Arm of the Goddess

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just really passionate about Impa and I think that she's mischaracterized and never gets the highlight I feel like she deserves. This has a lot of personal headcanonsfor Impa and the sheikah.

She is given her name after she is born, as all Sheikah are. A name is not something that is chosen, by parents or community or yourself. It is a gift that is given from the goddess. While the baby is swept away to be tended to and cleaned up, the mother is given tea, steeped with strengthening herbs. It is thought to be sacred, tea is. Representative of the goddesses. Water for Nayru and the shifting rivers of time, leaves for Farore and the life that thrums in each being on the world, and heat to represent Din and the march of the seasons. All three come together into a small, ceremonial cup, gilded in gold and white. Tea is only drunk in such a vessel for special occasions such as this. 

Her mother finished the tea, and it scalded her throat and tongue, but would hopefully give her the strength needed to carry on after her ordeal. Hylian mothers have a mortality rate after birth, and they do all they can to mitigate losing another mother. To gaining another orphan. 

The cup is offered back to another member and shown to the elder, who will divine through the patterns that are left the name of the child. 

It is the perfect shape of a single eye with a tear mark underneath it, as if it is crying. As if it is mourning. It is a rare symbol. It can only mean one thing. 

The elder gives the word and the child is named.

In another room, the small, newborn Impa opens her eyes. 

oOo

The first thing Impa knows is that her life is not her own. It is something that every Sheikah child knows from birth. That their lives and deaths are made for the protection of the Hylian family. They are a gift of the goddess to the world, her shield to protect her vessels from danger. To keep her light shining in this realm. They are the stories that the small sheikah are told at night by their elders as they lead them to their small, modest goddess statue to pray. The raising of children in the tribe is a community effort, and all adults help to watch over the five little ones. Births are rare, and each child is a blessing. 

Training starts as early as two years old with wooden swords and knives. Games of hide and seek around the village. Sheikah teachers are never cruel, but they are strict and quickly teach discipline to their students. There is a time for a play and a time for focus and is a time clearly defined to the youth. Each youth has additional training. When she is young she is allowed to tag along to Purah and Robbie’s lessons in arithmetics and research and construction. She trails along after Romi and Vin as they learn attack formations and have lessons in tandem movement between two to five members. Reading body language and predicting movements. 

It is made clear to Impa, by the soft comments and subtle words spoken by the adults, that neither of these directions will Impa’s personal training go. She was born with a unique title and a unique duty placed upon her, one that is only ever given to a child born with the name Impa. A reincarnated soul, they say. The left arm of the goddess, the ancient sage of shadow, born again.

A small Zelda is born to the royal family when Impa is only three, and the elder and adults bring her along so that she can peek into the cradle and see her charge in the person for the first time. The small infant Zelda’s hands are reaching into the air blindly, her eyes have refused to open since she was born, and sightlessly find Impa’s finger, instantly curling around it and holding onto it as if her hand is the only thing is existence in the world. 

Fierce protectiveness washes over Impa so sudden, so violent, she nearly falls over. 

oOo

Impa’s proper individual training starts when she is four. There had been talk to start her earlier than most children after the birth of Zelda, but the elder had steadfastly refused. So now after knife throwing and rune study and ancient history lessons and sword training, Impa is whisked away by the most skilled members of the clan and is taught to work alone in the shadows. How to become someone’s second shadow, hidden in the background, watching and protecting. The art of killing. How know when you are being watched, when you are being followed. Getting a charge to safety. Use of an environment to her advantage. 

The practice and lessons are long and hard and leave Impa with aching bones and burning muscles, collapsing into her bed long after the moon has risen. Purah usually sits at her table, tinkering and working and studying. 

“Go to bed.” Impa murmurs, eight years old and exhausted. Purah suppresses a yawn and continues her work. She waits, staring up at the ceiling. It is the same every night. The hours tick by until finally Purah’s writing stills and Impa’s eyes dart over to her sister slumped at her table, sentence half finished. 

Impa rises despite the cry of her muscles and with soft, quiet steps approaches her sister and picks her up. Purah reminds her of a bird, with thinly stretched muscles and so light in her arms it’s as if her bones were hollow. Purah does not stir, dark circles under her eyes indicating how much this sleep is needed. Her sister has been hard at work ever since the tribe began their search for the ancient technology. 

She puts her sister in her bed and pulls the covers up to her chin. Leans in and gives her older sister a kiss on the forehead. Gentle and soft and full of love. 

A year ago, it would be their mother doing this. 

Now it is just them. 

oOo

“My life is yours, your grace.” Impa eyes remained closed and her position remains kneeling. The clothing still feels as heavy as it did when she put it on this morning. Made to withstand a knife, to cushion against a sword. She can feel the princesses eyes on her, and wants to look up again. Impa had only caught a glimpse before she had fallen to a kneel, and her mind is still trying to match the face, soft and round, with that of the infant she had met seven years ago. 

“Impa will be the princesses personal guard, your highness.” Behind her one of the Sheikah warriors explains, though the king had surely known this was coming. 

“I had expected someone… older.” He says, and she doesn’t need to look to hear the way his eyebrow must raise. Impa’s hackles almost rise at that, but the Sheikah behind her beats her to it. 

“It is true that Impa is only ten, but she had been training for this for all her life. And she will not be alone. One of our soldiers will shadow her until she is old enough to take up the task completely on her own. She is adequately trained in…” 

The adults continue to talk, and Impa continues to stare at the floor, wondering when is the right time for her to rise. It sends a trill of panic and anxiety through her, realizing she isn’t sure. Does she wait for the princess to respond to her declaration? For the King to give an announcement? Or should she have risen by now, and everyone instead is thinking how foolish of her to remain crouched. 

Two small hands appear directly in her field of vision, and soon that same round face slides down the carpet until it can see her. 

“Your eyes are red.” Zelda whispers, voice full of awe. 

“T-they are, your highness.” 

“Why do you like the carpet so much?” 

“I- what?” Impa is completely thrown off. 

“You keep looking at it. Don’t you like it? This is my favorite design.” Zelda rolls over and traces her hand along a vining pattern that ends in a dragons head. “I like the the-”

“Zelda!” The King barks. “Get off the floor this instant.” 

The small princess jerks at the thunderous boom of the King voice and instantly jerks up, slamming her head right into Impa’s face and instantly giving the sheikah a bloody nose. 

It is not the most conventional proper first meeting. But that’s perhaps the best start for them, and is indeed indicative of what was to come. 

oOo

For the first time Impa realizes that the sheikah can just… lie. Well, it wasn’t a full on lie. There was always another sheikah on duty to watch the princess besides herself. But when they spoke to the King they made it sound as if one would always be by Impa’s side, teaching her to the ropes. Not rooms away scouting the perimeter. In all the ways that truly matter, Impa is alone with the small heir. 

A sheikah is silent. Is not seen and not heard. 

Zelda makes this a very hard standard to meet.

“Impa!” She calls out. The first time she did this Impa nearly jumped out of her skin, swinging from her perch atop the princesses balcony and into the room faster than the princesses - or any enemies - brains could even keep up with. Immediately she had looked around for an intruder, an enemy. There was only the princess, sat upon the floor, holding a doll out for her. 

“Yes, your grace?” It’s been a year since then, and Impa enter in a timely fashion, but not with the same urgency. She has not yet had a reason to learn the princesses panicked voice, and hopes never to, but she knows that the tone she used to call out her name was certainly not it. 

“Impa!” She exclaimed with a bright smile, doing the excited little shimmy she does whenever she has something to show her. Zelda is always happy, delighted, to see Impa. It makes her feel warm in her chest, as if it was laid out in the sun. “Look at this!” She turned her book around, depicting large arched houses that cling to the side of a tall pillar.

“Rito village.” Impa surmises, and Zelda nods so hard and so quickly she’s nearly afraid the small girls head may simply pop off her shoulders. 

“Look, look!” She says again, emphatically. “How do they stay like that? Are they afraid that they’ll fall?” The first time they met Zelda asked a question, and has seen little reason to stop asking questions since. 

“Rito fly.” Impa replies.

“I know  _ that _ . I meant visitors. Do they have to keep an eyes on them? Or do they harness them to the sides of the building? Or maybe paragliders are required of guests?” It reminds Impa of Purah, how her sister can get over any little new found piece of information. It’s frankly adorable on either of them. 

“I’m not sure… I never had to wear one. But the sheikah are specially trained. I’d have to check to see how the react to normal hylians.”

“You’ve been there?!” Zelda shrieks, bright blue eyes shimmering, leaning forward and grabbing Impa’s hands. “You have to tell me all about!” 

In that moment, Impa feels even more important and even luckier than the King of Hyrule himself. 

oOo

“It’s like it’s alive.” Zelda says, voice full of awe. Impa’s feet hurt, but it’s worth it to see how her face is positively lit up as she holds the ancient core in her hands, the rings around it oscillating and moving, lights inside glowing in and out like a slow, steady heartbeat. Sheikah are perhaps the fastest travelers in the land, but even she had to run faster than ever before to go to the village and borrow this from Purah and come back without anyone noticing she was gone. She hasn’t had an older warrior watching her in two months, but there were still sheikah posted all around the castle, and if she was gone long enough someone would surely notice. 

“How does it keep moving? What’s fueling it? Sustaining it? How is it alive after centuries underground?” She asks in an almost hushed whisper. Impa is leaning against the wall and nervously fiddles with a knife. 

“I… don’t know. I’m sorry, your highness-”

“-Zelda-”

“-perhaps I can arrange for Purah to guard you for a spell. She can tell you all about it. She’s part of the researchers. Hasn’t stopped talking since they unearthed the first guardian.” 

“Guardian?” 

“They’re these…” Impa searches for the right words. “... octopus like things. But made out of metal. And they glow like that core. We’ve only found the one, so far, but they think there may be many more.” 

“And Purah get’s to research these things?” Zelda asks earnestly, and there is envy and awe mingled in her voice. 

“She’s… much better at explaining this stuff than me. If we can arrange for her to be your guard-”

“No.” Impa stops in place as Zelda speaks up, hardly daring to meet those earnest blue eyes. The princesses soft hand reaches out and grasps her own. “I… I don’t feel safe. Without you here.” 

oOo

Three times a week Zelda prays. The way to the small personal spring is up to the highest part of the castle, a long climb of stairs up a tower. Closer to the gods. It’s a round room surrounded by windows. They’re closed in the winter to try and keep the room as warm as possible, but in the summer they’re wide open and let in a soft and gentle breeze. It’s good, because it wicks away the tears on Zelda’s face, and Impa can look out over Hyrule and try to give the princess the privacy she deserves. 

The only time Zelda is permitted to leave the castle is when the King has her sent out to one of the sacred Goddess springs. She is so small there. The water goes up to her neck in some places, and statue of the goddess is large and imposing. Impa hates the springs. It may be the first thing in life she truly hates, but a fact that cements itself in her heart as she walks about the perimeter of the Eldin spring. Something about it stirs up dark and troubled thoughts, the princess in danger and an evil force behind a closed door. 

Days of prayer make Zelda quiet and subdued. Those are the days that Impa brings her Sheikah technology and notes from Purah, her quick mind, sharp as a tack, unraveling mysteries before Impa’s very eyes.

It is to Zelda’s delight when her additions become noticed by the Sheikah elder, and they formally request from the King that he allow her to properly join in on their studies. The King agrees begrudgingly, and it must be because the elder herself came to the castle to request it, and Impa, standing obediently behind Zelda like the princesses second shadow, sees the way she shakes in excitement. 

Zelda is still not permitted to leave the castle in her free time, so the Sheikah bring the research to her. Within a week there’s three guardians lying dormant in the courtyard right outside of Zelda’s room, and every day for two weeks when she wakes up she rushes to the window as if to make sure that they’re really there, that it wasn’t a dream. 

She finally meets Purrah and Robbie and they get on like a house on fire. 

Zelda spends hours upon hours talking and discussing idea with them, particularly fascinated by the strange slate they have found. Three quick and sharp minds playing off one another. 

Impa sees the way her eyes look at the two and turns her head away, trying to choke out the strange feeling that was occupied her throat. She was always meant to be silent and unseen. But this is the first time she has truly felt like she is invisible around Zelda. 

It should feel correct. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed - they are what keep me wanting to write fics! 
> 
> If you're interested in more of my stuff I do lots of art on the-east-art.tumblr.com
> 
> have a great day!


End file.
